Amazon Kindle Fire: E-book reader and more

Amazon recently surprised everyone by announcing the Kindle Fire, a full-fledged tablet that runs Android OS on a dual core processor and implements cloud storage. It also focuses on your basic multimedia needs- web browsing, checking e-mail, watching videos, listening to music, playing games and of course, reading e-books.

The Kindle Fire will come with a price tag of only USD $199. That's less than half of what most tablets cost these days. Granted, it will have limited capabilities, but really, the Kindle Fire has pretty much everything you need in a tablet.

Update:
For a detailed information about the Kindle Fire, you can visit the official Kindle Fire website.

Poll: Alternatives to Vampires and Werewolves

Paranormal based books are mostly dominated by vampires and werewolves in terms of story themes and only some have story about demons(succubus), angels(nephilims), faeries, witches and warlocks. Aside from the two  which paranormal entity would be the next theme would you like to read.

Please do vote for your favorite paranormal entity which is located on the website sidebar.

The City of Fallen Angels Review

Title: City of Fallen Angels
Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: The Mortal Instrument #4
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult, Nephilim, Angels, Demons, Warlocks, Vampires, Demons, Faeries

Review:

City of Fallen Angels, The fourth installment of Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series was a slight shift in terms of the storyline as the focus of this story now rest on Simon Lewis, the vampire "daywalker" and Clary's best friend. Though the series main protagonist Jace Weyland( or Morgentstern or Lightwood or Herondale?) and Clarissa Fray (or Morgensterm) as well as the rest cast  with some new characters particularly Jordan Kyle a member of Praetus Lupus and a new threat in demon Lilith, 'The mother of all warlocks".

The fourth installment was not deprived of drama, romance and some light comedy which fans love from the first three books. On this book, you will find out that Jace and Clary's relationship has encountered some "rough" times along with the new threat. As with the previous series, book ends in a cliffhanger which will surely the make the readers clamor for excitement of the upcoming next book entitled City of Lost Souls.

Overall, City of Fallen Angels is a good start to the second trilogy of the Mortal Instruments Series even though the technically the "mortal instruments" are where no longer the focus of the story.

Dragonlance Book Guide Site

Dragonlance has been one of the top fantasy book novels written by RPG gurus Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. A few authors has also contributed to expand the Dragonlance universe which increases the number of novels to over 50 books. If your a newbie reader and want to start reading Dragonlance books but done want to get confuse which books to start reading, then I would recommend you follow the original series canon which is demonstrated on the Dragonlance Book guide website.

This website will guide the reader to the chronological order of the original canon of the story of the Companions. Aside from the original canon series, there will be other books that are no longer in line with the series canon but will also further tell the story of the characters and event that happened in Krynn.

Lucifer's Daughter Review

Title: Lucifer's Daughter
Author: Eve Langlais
Series: Princess of Hell #1
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Erotica, Demons, Angels

Review:
The first ever romance/erotica book that I have read although for a man to read this is quiet unusual I tried it out since it was recommend to me by a friend on Goodread.com. The book is a story about Muriel who is Satan's daughter having to struggle to find her one true love and found her man who was actually an angel. The book showed some balance of romance, erotica and very good deal of comedy. The comedy portion of this book is somewhat compare to a sitcom on TV. Overall it's a good book to read on specially if you want to take a breather on some the paranormal, science fiction or fantasy books.

Martview, an attractive PDF reader that lets you share publications

Martview is basically a PDF reader that you have put steroids in the eye, thinking nothing more than touch screens. The appearance is what draws the most attention, with a modern design and useful. The program runs full screen and the menu bar is hidden at the top. We have several ways to view the documents, but the most striking is what allows us to turn the pages as if they were pages of a book, but we can resort to more usual methods, with a vertical or horizontal. In addition, it has the usual functions of zoom or display an index of pages through thumbnails.

Supports two formats: PDF and MART, the reader himself. However, we can convert images (JPEG, GIF and PNG), ZIP, RAR and PDF format them with the internal converter MART. Recommend it to PDF because that program performance is better. For testing, I tried to convert a pair of compressed files but there was no way, though I had better luck with images only, where I worked without problems.

Martview offers a service that allows you to download content uploaded by other users or increase our own using a small integrated manager. And of course, have the ability to share what they are reading at that time through Twitter and Facebook. For every click you make someone share the link, you will be given 5 points. When you reach a certain number of points you can unlock certain categories of publications that initially you can not access.

Among the "buts" that you can put the program is it lacks a function to mark pages and will only be able to read PDF, apart from the proprietary format. Also missing is an option to turn the interface and use it in portrait mode, something that would be wrong. In addition, it consumes considerable resources and recommended for use with other programs closed, so we can not be very useful if we have it to look up information as we work.

No doubt, a very attractive option in the panorama of desktop readers, but more suitable for prolonged reading or files that contain many images. I find it very convenient for when you feel only to read but not for everyday use constant consultation. His appearance is very pleasant and the experience of reading with this program seemed more pleasant than with other readers lighter. MartView is free and works on any Windows from 2000 to Windows 7. No further specification is available on its website, but if you have installed Java 1.6, you can not install the program. This lack of specifications is also a bug, so I recommend you be careful where you install, does not work or you do not do it halfway.

You can get the program in its own official website.

Resource: ArticleBase

Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

Podcast for Fictional Book readers

Aside from reading books, I am also an avid podcast listener and I have been listening to several podcast genre's on my iPod. There's one podcast show for sci-fi/fantasy and book afficionado called "Sword and Laser"

The Sword and Laser is a science fiction and fantasy-themed book club and podcast, hosted by Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt. The main goal of the club is to build a strong online community of sci-fi / fantasy buffs, and to discuss and enjoy books of both genres.

You can follow the show the the Sword and Laser website as well as subscribing on iTunes just search for "Sword and Laser"

Social Networks For The Booklover

Most booklovers share two things in common: (1) the love of a great book and (2) sharing that book with friends. From book clubs to reading groups, social networking has always played a part in the avid reader's life. It is no surprise this love has gone digital.

Book social networks are those focused on reading and sharing books with others through book lists and reviews. Not only are these book-based social networks a great way to share good books, they are also an excellent way to find new books to read.

Social Networks for Booklovers

Review: City of Glass (book 3 of 3 of the Mortal Instruments)

r

Title: City of Glass
Author: Cassandra Claire
Series: The Mortal Instruments #3
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Young Adult, Nephilim, Angels, Demons, Warlocks, Vampires, Demons, Faeries.

Review:
Finally posted my review for the 3rd installment of Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series City of Glass

The third and final installment in the first Mortal Instruments trilogy definitely lives up to the reputation of the first two – City of Bones and City of Ashes .City of Glass picks up a short time after City of Ashes ends.Clary has a mission. Madeleine, her mother’s friend, is possibly the only person who knows how to wake her mother from a coma.Clary will have to travel to Alicante in Idris to get what she needs.

Alicante is the ancestral home of the Shadowhunters.It is known as the City of Glass because of the beautifully tall glass towers that guard the city from harm.The only way to get to Idris is through a portal and Magnus, the warlock, has arranged one.Clary is planning to go through the portal with Jace and the Lightwoods.The only problem is, Jace doesn’t want Clary to go so he lies to her about when he and the Lightwoods are leaving.He thinks it is too dangerous for Clary.

After being left behind, Clary eventually finds her way to Alicante.She uses her ability to create runes and makes a portal for herself.Being new to the Shadowhunter world, Clary doesn’t know that using a portal and entering the city without permission is against the law. If she is found she could be put to death.

Once in the City of Glass, Clary is thrown in the middle of the largest battle the Shadowhunters have ever had to face.Valentine’s evil plans are in the final stages and everyone is on full alert, not knowing what he will do next.Jace and Clary’s complicated relationship keeps them just as confused as ever, but provides great excitement for the reader.

To Read: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Preview:
"In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.


Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.


Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives."

A Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (the 1st book of the Ender's Saga series) is a must read for all Science Fiction fanatics.